A Flu Shot During Pregnancy Prevents More Than Just the Flu

Getting the flu shot while you’re pregnant won’t just protect you against the flu, it will also reduce some other pregnancy risks. In a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada looked at Ontario’s birth record database during the H1N1 pandemic in November 2009 to April 2010. They analyzed 55,570 single-child birth – of those women, 42% got vaccinated.

Researchers found that the women who received the flu vaccine were 34% less likely to have a stillbirth, 28% less likely to deliver before 32 weeks gestation and 19% less likely to give birth to a child with a low birth weight. Also, there were no reported side effects for vaccinated moms and their babies in the weeks before and after birth.

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Sarah is the Editorial Assistant at The Bump where she's all about finding the latest and greatest in baby and parenting trends, from the best (and worst!) baby names to the coolest baby products. Ironically, she doesn't have any kids and is 100% single, but she's still obsessed with everything baby-related (much to the embarrassment of her friends). read more

This article is full of falsehoods! Women who get the flu shot are more likely to seek prenatal care. Can you say that these so-called benefits you list are not because of better prenatal care instead of the vaccine?

The flu shot contains the H1N1 vaccine, which has been found to potentially cause miscarriages. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030657_vaccines_miscarriages.html) The flu shot has not been tested on pregnant women and small children, and we don’t know the long-term effects it could have on pregnant women and their growing babies.

Another thing to consider is that there are thousands of strains of the flu, and the vaccine only contains antibodies to a handful of them. How much would the vaccine actually protect you?

Correlation does not mean causation, and you should not be spreading unsubstantiated information. If you want to know whether you should get the flu vaccine during pregnancy, ask your care provider to show you the vaccine insert with the safety warnings, or look them up yourself on the CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#flu and decide for yourself if you are comfortable getting the shot.

Here is a web site by a nurse and homeopath, who has been studying this topic for over 15 years, which includes links to the science against flu vaccination, ESPECIALLY if you are pregnant! http://www.wellwithin1.com/flu.htm PLEASE research this topic THOROUGHLY, as many babies have been damaged and have died, as a result of being vaccinated. IF you choose to take the risk, at least do it with your eyes open!

This vaccine nearly took my life. My second son was 4 months old at the time and I was nursing him and he also became very ill. I had to stop nursing him at 5 months as a result. :( Very, very, very NOT worth the risk. The majority of flu shots contain MERCURY. Unless you’re a 200 pound man or larger, there is enough mercury in them to poison mother and baby. This article needs to be revised with that if not taken down. The standard time allowable to make a claim in vaccine court is within 3 years of the incident, the H1N1 shot was reduced to within 18 months of the incident. It’s because that’s about exactly how long it takes to go to 6 different ‘specialists’ get an MRI, Colonoscopy, Endoscopy, x-rays, and blood work countless times before you realize IT WAS THE SHOT.

What pandemic are you talking about? I heard all about the H1N1 and how it was going to be a pandemic and then never saw a single person with it. I contracted the flu at 15 weeks and it was the worst case I have ever had. Four days worth of aches and pains. I can’t see the study but I love how nothing else is mentioned aside from the flu shot. What part of the shot is supposed to be beneficial?

According to the FDA, the influenza shot is a class C drug. This means that it is not known whether the vaccine can cause fetal harm and has not been tested in either pregnant animals or women. According to the FLUVIRIN insert, safety and effectiveness of FLUVIRIN have not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers, or children less than 4 years of age.

I’m 35 weeks now and have had zero contractions, my baby’s heartbeat is always in the same range, and have had zero complications. I guess not getting the flu shot for no reason didn’t hurt me.

?????Really????? Please, please ,please research all vaccines before receiving them. The flu vaccine INCREASES the chance of miscarriage and premature birth!!! I don’t know where the info in the article was scraped from but it is completely untrue. The link to the “new study” does not even work.

“less likely to have a still birth” because the flu shot already caused the mother to miscarry right after she received the shot. Don’t be fooled, the flu shot during pregnancy is dangerous! Google miscarraiges and flu shot, you can read personal stories of hundreds of women who met the fate of the flu shot.

I think this should read “getting a flu shot during pregnancy won’t protect you against the flu”

That’s the conclusion the Cochrane Collaboration came to regarding the flu in healthy adults. As for the H1N1, several countries noted increases in miscarraiges of between 300~800% and are now experiencing record high cases of narcolepsy.

Kevin, why would you be so eager to censor information, simply because it disagrees with your personal opinion? Also, what does parenthood have to do with scientific or medical research, or with journalism? Having children does not bestow innate ability to read and write about research reports, which is what this article is about.
As to the comment above suggesting that stories from the internet are a good way to gather medical information, I think we can all see how ridiculous that is. In fact, using the numbers provided by some of those intentionally scary internet articles, the rate of miscarriage following the H1N1 shot is not any higher than the average, which means that the shot does not increase the probability of miscarriage. In fact, the numbers provided in those articles being used by the above poster are actually a bit lower than the norm, which indicates that the flu shot could have a somewhat protective effect.
Perhaps you should sit down and think long and hard about that.

Conclusion
The incidence of narcolepsy with cataplexy in children/adolescents in the Swedish population increased during the pandemic and vaccination period, with a rapid decline in incidence during the post pandemic period. Subjects who had been vaccinated with Pandemrix were at a 6.6‐fold increased risk to develop narcolepsy with cataplexy compared to those who had not been vaccinated. Cases of narcolepsy with cataplexy with onset after vaccination had a higher prevalence of cataplexy as a first symptom and of two or more simultaneous symptoms as compared with non‐vaccinated cases.
These new results provide strengthened evidence that vaccination with Pandemrix during the pandemic period was associated with an increase in the risk for narcolepsy with cataplexy in children/adolescents 19 years and younger. Further research is urgently needed to explain the possible causative mechanisms.

This article is misleading. This study is looking at the women who got the flu shot, but fails to disclose other factors that contribute to low birth weight, still births and pre-term labor. It is not disclosing pre-natal care, check ups, environmental factors, socio-economic levels, genetics, pre-existing health issues, etc. This is a biased article and the science seems manipulated to achieve a pre-determined conclusion.

Please read this article by Dr. Suzanne Humphries on the risk of getting a flu shot while pregnant. It points out flaws in the way vaccine research is conducted. http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/29/3013/ Why be a guinea pig? There is thimerosal (ethylmercury), a dangerous neurotoxin, in flu shots. Flu shot package inserts state no studies have been done on flu vaccine’s risk of cancer (Go to CDC website.). You care more about your unborn baby than anyone else in the world. Can’t pharma even wait until your child is born to vaccinate him? Please, read Neil Z. Miller’s “Vaccine Safety Manual.” The autism rate was 1 in 88. It used to be one in 15,000.